Yesterday, one of my colleagues asked if she could borrow my CoRo-CDs. Today, after my having handed them over, she blithely informs me that she's taking a short break and won't be able to give them back to me until the end of next week!

I hate lending stuff. Past experience has taught me that you can never be sure if and when you'll get it back, or in what state. The number of books I've lost! But when someone asks me to allow them to use my most prized possessions, I'm too bloody polite to say no.

You are an SRCL--Sober Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you an Ayn Rand ideal. Taggart? Roark? Galt? You are all of these. You were born to lead. You may not be particularly exciting, but you have a strange charisma--born of intellect and personal drive--that people begin to notice when they have been around you a while. You don't like to compromise, but you recognize when you have to.

You care absolutely nothing what other people think, and this somehow attracts people to you. Treat them well, use them wisely, and ascend to your rightful rank.

Hmmm. I read Ayn Rand years ago, back in my uni days. The Fountainhead -- saw the movie as well. It's a story about an architect swimming against the current, sticking his neck out, risking ruin yet persevering in his ideal: to build a modern highrise. I was young and impressionable, so on my first reading of the novel, I thought it was terrifically inspiring. Then I came across the book again some time ago, had nothing better to do, opened it...and couldn't finish it. Really, it's the most utter tripe.

Actually, in The Netherlands we're pretty lucky in that we can get virtually anything as long as it's on cable (or satellite).

Taggart, eh? The name rings a bell...but even though I'll gladly settle down to watch a British detective series on most occasions, this one seems to have left me with no mental images.

Did I tell you that I acted as a Foley artist on A Touch of Frost once? I did -- I was 'voice in the crowd' in a scene where Frost goes into the opera...and I cut up his sausages for breakfast...poured his tea...and slammed the garden gate. Pity I only got to do that one episode...superstardom could have been within my grasp otherwise. ;-)

Mine is mostly Southern, but I don't actually speak English all that often. I need to get one of those chat interfaces. ;-)

My own is polished regional dialect, but we've actually a great diversity of accents in my country, as the population is very scattered. Actually, I heard this afternoon that Sweden would have 200 million inhabitants if we had the same density of population as The Netherlands. We have 8.7 million, or so.